MEDIA A2 COURSEWORK

EVALUATION Q.4

Q.4) How did you use technologies in the research and planning,
construction and evaluation stages?

RESEARCH AND PLANNING

SURVEY MONKEY
I created a survey on Survey Monkey to allow
me to get some audience feedback on my
chosen audiences preferences and dislikes
when it comes to their soap viewing.

SURVEY MONKEY
Firstly I asked their age with an answer box
for them to type I s as I didn't want to
generalise their ages into categories (e.g:2025) as this wouldnt give me a specific idea of
their age.

SURVEY MONKEY
I continued the survey

with questions such as

What is your gender? ,
Favourite Soap Opera?
,How often do you
watch soaps? and
What storylines appeal
to you?
This would allow me to
gain an understanding
of my audiences
viewing habits and their
preferences in terms of
soap narratives/themes.

DISPLAYING AUDIENCE FEEDBACK

I mostly displayed
audience feedback on
my blog under many of
my drafts/practice runs
of my final products.
This feedback allowed
me to make
improvements on my
work so that it followed
the conventions and
connotations of our
chosen soap genre.

CONSTRUCTION

PHOTOSHOP
I used Photoshop to take the background off
the pictures I used in my final products and to
edit text for my billboard. Photoshop allowed
me to create realistic products that mirror
those in real life such as Inside Soap
magazine and E4s banner on their billboards.

PHOTOSHOP Editing Pictures

I used the Quick Selection Tool to

remove an area of the background.
After selecting this I pressed
Delete on the keyboard which left
me with no background. I then
carried on and repeated this action
until all the background was gone.

PHOTOSHOP Editing Pictures

Next I used the Zoom tool to zoom in on the image. I

then selected the Eraser Tool and started to rub away
the smaller, more intricate areas that I couldn't reach
previously. I chose the strength and diameter of the eraser
as quite small so I didnt rub away part of the picture.

PHOTOSHOP Editing Pictures

Finally, I used the Blur Tool to smooth out

the edges of the picture because it looked
rough and it seemed obvious that a
background had been taken out. I chose
the strength and diameter of the Blur
Tool to be a soft blur level because I
wanted it to look unnoticeable.

PUBLISHER
I used Microsoft Publisher to create my soap
magazine. Using Microsoft Publisher allowed
me to organise the layout of my magazine
easily and I then layered banners, flashes,
pictures and the magazine logo for a
professional look.

PUBLISHER Banners and

Shapes
I created banners using the
Shapes button and selecting the
rectangle shape. I then edited
each shape to have a different Fill
Colour and Line Colour.
I then used the same Shapes
button to create other shapes
such as circles and I used it to help
me create the magazines name.

PUBLISHER Fonts/Text
Most of the text used was

created in a Text Box on

Publisher itself but some text
such as the SHOCKED,
Neighbours and Secrets
Inside text was created online
on Font Squirrel. This website
allowed me to browse through
many different fonts and
choose the one I felt was the
most appropriate for my
magazine. I typed the text on
Font Squirrel and copy and
pasted it to my magazine.

PUBLISHER - Images
All images were edited in

Publisher using the Crop tool

except the two images that
arent in the shape of a square.
These images were edited in
Photoshop before they were
copy and pasted to my
magazine and I then used the
Send To Back and Bring To
Front tools to layer the images
in front of shapes and behind
text. This allowed me to anchor
images with text.